I bought my S3 some 10 years ago, and it's still a major suplier of drumsounds in my studio. Since I have the machine such a long time, I got to know it's systems quite well, although I've never used the internal sequencer. The sounds are nice, very nice to be exact, especially those on the 3 different external cards. Some 5 years ago I bought a RAM-card (the one also used for the M1) which enables me to use 3 complete soundbanks at one time. But because of the S3's very complex structure, first I had to change the waves on all timbres of one of those banks, before I could use all 3 at a time. Thanx for that, Korg! (NOT) I'm really fond of the internal effects. They gave some of my songs it's very own sound and feel. The quality of those effects are quite high. Therefore it was a little stupid of Korg not to include audio inputs so external sounds can be put through the effectsmachine. In fact I consider that a major failure on the S3, especially since it does have 4 multi-outputs and even an SMPTE-generator (which probably no one has ever used!!) To conclude I totally agree with Peter Hamm that the cool thing about the S3 is that only a dozen or so people got the damn thing!

Rating: 4 out of 5
posted Friday-Feb-07-2003 at 04:36

William Street
a hobbyist user
from USA
writes:

I got this machine for $50 from someone I was working with for a while (he was more into his DR-660...also a versatile machine, but not nearly as unique now)and he also sold me a Univox K2 for another $50...the fool. I mean, thanks John. This machine is probably the most underheard drum machine I know of. The programmability is almost insane. I made about 5 or 6 kits of my "own" stock sounds that I work with. I'm about to get a sampler, which is now a necessity since after banging the crap out of the pads for a while, I can't get into the kits and the patterns are full. Anyone know someone who works on them? Peez, Wilhelm

Rating: 4 out of 5
posted Tuesday-Aug-20-2002 at 17:51

writes:

holy crap is the only thing i can say about this machine! it is the most un user friendly drum machine i own - but i love it. i saw it in a local music store used for 140 dollars and ask to hear it. listened to the demo and bought it. it came with the dance card set too! the thing i like the most is you can program each drum sound just like a synth. so i take a bass guitar sample and lower the octave and it sounds like the kick on most boards of canada stuff and you can ad the attack of almost anything to that. i have got a lot of really weird sounds out of my s3. it is a bitch to program but its worth it. does anyone know of any big artists who used to or still use one?

Rating: 4 out of 5
posted Friday-Mar-16-2001 at 13:12

obi-wan kenobi
a hobbyist user
writes:

the korg s3 rules the sounds are really first rate better than a 909 and not as cliche there is no real time control at ALL other than pattern change, roll, and flam

good idea: buy one and sample it bad idea: buy one as a first drum machine

i filled up the memory at pattern 78 but after attempting to edit a pattern it freezes up if i try to play a pattern over #60 after further attempts all other patterns were frozen and it plays a short (aphex twin like) pattern and then has to be rebooted oh well have to reinitialize it (2nd time) at least i sampled the malfunctions Peace

Rating: 4 out of 5
posted Wednesday-Aug-02-2000 at 02:20

Peter Hamm
a part-time user
from USA
writes:

The cool thing about the S3 is that even though it's 10 years old, only me and about six other guys bought one, so the sounds haven't become old and tired like the old R8 and SR16. Plus, if you can find one with all three card sets (especially "jazz" imo) for cheap, it rocks! I love the sounds, but I admit that it is way too difficult to use. Those idiots at ZOOM designed it for another company, so I guess they didn't care how hard it was to use.